Jakob J.'s Reviews > Quack This Way

I am forever a howling fantod, in both senses of the phrase. I didn’t necessarily think I could still call myself a fan of David Foster Wallace. These past few years I have experienced a reading depression—a consequence of a general, deep depression which got worse before getting better—and thought I may have lost my ability to appreciate and enjoy literature, as well as my passion for the written word, for language. I was grasping at straws—by which I mean books—desperately trying to stay engaged, but I was incapable of finishing anything. (Forgive the sentimental aside, but I predominantly credit getting active on Goodreads again and being able to write, discuss books, and read reviews from all of you fine people with overcoming that collapse, so thank you; yes, you).

There is no way for me to read or listen to David Foster Wallace without lamentation. It’s like having a lucid dream about an old friend, deceased for years, knowing it’s a dream and just trying to stay there with him for as long as you can. I know that’s more sentimentality, but I can’t help it. My discovery of his work marks a time in my life I often wish I could return to.

After DFW’s suicide, there did develop a kind of cult of sentimentality around him and many readers formed a parasocial relationship with him, posthumously, through his writing and interviews. I was among them. Lexicographer Bryan A. Garner captures this in his introductory tribute:

“Sometimes, when I’m unhappy, I’ll read David’s commencement speech immortalized in the booklet This is Water…And it makes me happier…His words uplift me. They give me hope. I’m not alone. Strange, isn’t it, that he didn’t find the hope within himself—the hope he gave to so many others.”

His spectacular experiential essays had a lot to do with it, in my case.

Quack This Way is, in long form interview, a giddy celebration of language and writing. I gobbled it up and loved every moment, not least of which because it provided proof that I am not done with writing, with improving, and literature is not done with me. (I’d be interested in hearing if anyone else has had a similar lapse and recovery of their reading/writing life).

I’m sure I’ve committed infractions discussed in this interview in this very review:

“I am not, in and of myself, interesting to a reader. If I want to seem interesting, work has to be done in order to make myself interesting.”

Moreover, I know my work and my writing has suffered due to my time away from literature. I backslid. I got dumber, frankly. I was heartened to read DFW express something similar:

“It’s also true that we go through cycles. Right? At least in terms of my own work, I’ve gone through three or four of these, and I’m in one now, where it feels as if I’ve forgotten everything I’ve ever known. I have no idea what to do…
“And except on the days I’m really depressed, I realize that I’ve been through these before. These are actually good—one’s being larval…Or else, I just can’t do this anymore, in which case I’ll find something else to do. And I brood about that a fair amount.”

This book aided me in rekindling my “lifelong apprenticeship.”